July 11, 2017
By Keith Matthews, Director Quality Systems, Regulatory Compliance Associates Inc.
Developing a quality system is the foundation for ensuring the organization’s products or services are safe, effective and controlled to deliver customer satisfaction. Throughout the organization’s lifecycle, from start-up through maturity, the quality needs of the firm, along with its budget constraints, are continually evolving. Maintaining compliance with regulations while controlling costs represents a challenging balancing act we encounter in our life science consultancy.
June 15, 2017
By Susan Schniepp, Distiguished Fellow at Regulatory Compliance Associates, Inc
One of the most discussed and debated topics on today’s pharmaceutical landscape is the issue of quality metrics. Establishing, maintaining, and interpreting quality metrics to determine the suitability of pharmaceutical products has become a high priority for the FDA. To understand the issue of quality metrics it is important to start at the beginning.
June 8, 2017
By Vivian Bringslimark, President and Owner, HPIS Consulting, Inc.
While training may appear to be straightforward to most leaders, the effectiveness follow up is anything but clear-cut. So why do business leaders frown when the answer to the training effectiveness question is – it depends?
Patients of Alzheimer’s disease, their families, and health care advocates recently encountered back-to-back disappointments when two clinical trials for Alzheimer’s drugs failed in quick succession. First, Eli Lilly & Co. stopped its late-stage clinical trial for solanezumab, then Merck & Co. ended its clinical trial for verubecestat. Both studies failed to show efficacy.
May 23, 2017
By Marci Crane, Staff Writer, MasterControl
It’s difficult to label any phobia as the “strangest” because most phobias are considered kooky, weird or downright bizarre. Phobias are also nearly impossible to understand with the logical mind – they just don’t seem to make sense! However, for those experiencing a true phobia, logic doesn’t make one bit of difference. The terror is still alive and well.
April 4, 2017
By Paul Sanderson, Solutions Consultants Manager, MasterControl
“Quality management” is one of those terms that sounds so simple and esoteric at the same time, like DNA or free cash flow. I’m pretty sure I know what those terms mean until I start explaining them to someone.
November 29, 2016
By Patricia Santos-Serrao, Director of Product Strategy, MasterControl
In a classic episode of Seinfeld, George Costanza is terrified of the potential ramifications of his “worlds colliding” when his fiancée, Susan, becomes friendlier with his dubious pals Elaine, Kramer and Jerry. “Everybody knows you’ve got to keep your worlds apart,” George rants (but when does George not rant?) “If Susan is allowed to infiltrate this world then George Costanza as you know him ceases to exist. If Relationship George walks through this door, he will kill Independent George! A George divided against itself cannot stand!”
November 2, 2016
By Vivian Bringslimark, President and Owner, HPIS Consulting, Inc.
Ask an operations manager and he’ll acknowledge that what it’s called is less important than getting the “assignment” done and entered into the LMS. He’s usually more concerned about the loss of productivity during the training than the effectiveness of the training at that time. It isn’t until later when the training may have to be delivered again (repeated), that the comment “training doesn’t really work” is heard.
“The Big Lebowski” never fails to make me laugh. The 1998 cult classic, starring the indefatigable Jeff Bridges, features some of the most quotable lines in film. Saying them is enough to break the ice among strangers at a party. In my family, the quotes are inside jokes that never grow old.
May 19, 2016
By Laurie Meehan, Social Media Manager, Polaris Compliance Consultants
SOP revision. It falls somewhere between income tax prep and colonoscopy prep on the likability scale. So why would you want to read about it? Maybe you’re hoping someone’s figured out a way to make the process more efficient and less painful. Maybe we have.
May 17, 2016
By Sholeh Ehdaivand, President and CEO, LMK Clinical Research Consulting
Training is a vital component of workplace efficiency especially when it comes to one of the most important deliverables of a clinical trial – the Trial Master File (TMF). Perhaps that’s why, according to a recent article in Forbes magazine, U.S. companies spent over $70 billion on corporate training in 2014, an increase of 15% over the previous year. If you are lucky enough to oversee the TMF, you spend so much time bringing the right employees on board, it only makes sense you would understand the importance of providing them with the proper training to ensure your TMF is always inspection ready.
May 5, 2016
By Dave Hunter, Product Management Director, MasterControl
A recent warning letter to a medical device firm shows the importance of proper documentation of cleanroom maintenance procedures and corresponding control of those documents. The FDA noted the company’s failure to establish and maintain written procedures for avoiding contamination of equipment, as well as the incongruity between some of its cleanroom procedures and records of actual practice (1).
January 26, 2016
By Martin Browning, President and Co-Founder, EduQuest
Although FDA is strapped with limited resources and competing priorities, the Agency continues to hammer regulated companies with FDA 483 inspection observations and Warning Letters.
December 31, 2015
By Laurie Meehan, Social Media Manager, Polaris Compliance Consultants
The most substantial change to international guidelines in 20 years occurred earlier this year when the ICH* issued a draft addendum to its GCP guidelines, ICH E6(R2).
November 3, 2015
By Marci Crane, Staff Writer, MasterControl
Although a long list of candidates make up the list of “eligibles” for the 2016 Presidential election, it’s fairly apparent that the two most conspicuous candidates are, respectively, Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump. These two candidates, though liked and disliked by various population pockets across the United States, have certainly managed to make names for themselves within their various areas of expertise.
January 13, 2015
By Laurie Meehan, Social Media Manager, Polaris Compliance Consultants
By now, we all know that risk-based monitoring (RBM) isn’t just about changing the role of the clinical research associate (CRA); it’s transforming the way clinical studies are managed. So what does that mean for quality assurance (QA) teams who audit these new processes? Polaris president Celine Clive led a roundtable discussion about RBM and its implications for auditing at November’s North Carolina Regulatory Affairs Forum (NCRAF) meeting.
October 23, 2014
By Holly DeIaco-Smith, MS, HDS Consulting
Don’t get me wrong, these skills are important and they are point of entry for a good CRA. These skills are expected as a minimum set of skills to be hired for the job of CRA but they are not the skills that differentiate a great CRA.
October 2, 2014
By Paul Sanderson, Solutions Consultants Manager, MasterControl
Effective project management helps your company save time and money by keeping projects on time and on budget. It optimizes your resources by assigning the right people with the right skills for every project. In a regulated environment, you need all of these, plus one more crucial consideration: compliance.
Each year, the most popular learning course we provide is targeted at developing the skills necessary for our customers’ associates to implement their corrective action programs effectively and efficiently. Throughout the years, we have been asked the same question hundreds of times, “What are the most common reasons corrective actions fail?” Usually this question is asked during the corrective action learning session by a management team member hoping that we will deliver the message to the other team members that they are failing. Normally, we turn the question back around to the group and ask them why they think their corrective action program fails. The most common answers we hear are: limited time, resources, training, or not knowing which tools to use.
